Blendtec Fun! (And Peanut Butter Cups!)

Warning: I’m a little loopy and stuffy-nosey as I type this. There might be some nonsensical stuff goin’ on here. Please ignore! :)

I am so spoiled! Mr. Wing-It wanted to buy me an end-of-our-exhausting-travels present and after much research he decided to buy me a Blendtec YAY! Do I have the bestest husband or what?! A Blendtec! I am one of the cool kids now! :D

Perfectly smooth peanut butter

Doesn’t that peanut butter look perfect?! My first attempt at making peanut butter with my new toy was kind of a disaster. The end result wasn’t really peanut butter, it was more like a peanut paste. Odd. It was my fault because I added some maple syrup to the peanuts before they were *completely* butterized (yeah, that’s a word now) and the peanut paste never became smooth. That’s cool, I used the peanut paste to make peanut butter blondies (same recipe as the almond butter blondies but with peanut butter… or paste) and they were grrrreat!

Wanna see my Blendtec in action, turning roasted peanuts into peanut butter? Watch this video! Don’t ask me why I decided to end it with a curtsey though. Too much Austen, I guess! :P

Awesome stuff! Can’t see the video? It’s OK, don’t feel left out, you can watch it on flickr.

*EDIT: The video is one minute and thirteen seconds, but the actual peanut butter making process took longer! Roughly about eight minutes, including all the stirring that happened in between cycles.

One pound of roasted peanuts made about nine ounces of peanut butter, and I turned some of it into peanut butter cups! These are nonconformist cups, because the filling is not the traditional one made with powdered sugar, this one is gooey and it’s made with maple syrup.

1. In a small mixing bowl combine the peanut butter, coconut milk, maple syrup, and vanilla extract. Mix well and thoroughly stir in the salt and the ground almonds. Set aside.

2. In a dry glass bowl, microwave the chocolate chips on medium power for 45 seconds. Stir the chips around a bit and microwave again, on medium power for 30 more seconds. Stir and repeat until the chippers are completely melted.

3. Separate your candy cups or mini cupcake liners and use a butter knife (or any small knife with a rounded point) to coat the bottoms and sides of all the cups with the melted chocolate. A generous layer is best to keep the peanut butter cups from breaking. Freeze for five minutes or until the chocolate is hard and solid. *

4. Fill each cup with the peanut butter filling, but don’t fill them all the way up to the top, leave a couple of millimeters for the chocolate topping. The filling should be quite sticky.

5. Top all the little cuppies with the rest of the melted chocolate. Spread the chocolate so that all the cups are nice and brown on top. You might need to reheat the chocolate if it’s not soft anymore. Just 30 seconds in the microwave on medium power should do it. Freeze or refrigerate the cuppies until firm. I froze mine because I *wanted* them right away! :D

* I placed the cups in a mini muffin pan so they would have a nice even shape, but that’s just my OCD talking.

Nonconformist gooey filling

A few pictures of the peanut-butter-cup-making process:

This is the bottom chocolate layer, already cold.

Peanut butter filling. Sorry about the awful picture.

Chocolate topping with a swirly top

My new toy also makes super smooth hummus! Although the first time I used it to make hummus it was also a disaster. That’s what I get for trying to follow the recipe that came with the recipe book! I forgot to wing it! :D

Perfectly smooth hummus. Yes, I eat hummus with potato chips.

The Blendtec is fairly easy to clean, which is always a plus! I use a long brush to wash it and unless I make something super sticky (like peanut butter!) cleaning it is no big deal. This thing has some serious power, and it gets very loud! Not loud enough for me to complain about it, especially because it doesn’t need to run very long to destroy whatever you throw in there. And it makes smooth smoothies, unlike my old rinky-dink blender that made chunkies instead. And I have made elebenty batches of dairy-free milk. Oat milk, white rice milk, brown rice milk, millet milk…

Millet milk. I don’t drink plain milk of any kind. This picture is a sham!

And as if I weren’t spoiled enough, the mailman just delivered an awesome package from Alisa of One Frugal Foodie (and Go Dairy Free!) Oh yes, Alisa had an awesome giveaway and I was the lucky winner of four cookbooks! Four!! The contents of my bounty: My Sweet Vegan, Vegan Brunch, The Urban Vegan, and Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen! Whoooo! Thank you again, Alisa! I am psyched!!

Don’t be jealous, you can also have an awesome new cookbook, and the best thing is that you can have it right now! Alisa has created an amazing eCookbook with 125 recipes and over 100 photos – all donated by lots of stellar food bloggers and cookbook authors! Oh yeah, and it’s free! This communal gem is called Smart School Time Recipes: The Breakfast, Snack, and Lunchbox Cookbook for Healthy Kids and Adults and you can download it here! Not all the recipes are vegan, but most recipes can be veganized these days. I will be doing a cookbook spotlight for this awesomeness very soon! :)

PS: Is anybody interested in a millet milk post/recipe, complete with creamy aerolatte foam and all? Or maybe a brown rice milk? Or both? :)

Comments

Congratulations on your new blender. I know just how you feel because I just got a new (well, reconditioned) Vitamix. I tried it out today and made horrible soup. But it was my fault. Then I made ice cream that was a smoothie instead. I know I’ll get the hang of it in no time. Right? The power is just awesome.

I just drooled a little on my keyboard over your peanut butter. I still haven’t done that myself, although that is what I was most excited to try with my Vitamix. Laziness will do that to you, I suppose.

I have blender envy now! Watching you make that peanut butter was AWESOME! It’s just like magic! And I’ve been meaning to make peanut butter cups for the loooongest time but I’m frightened because I just know I’d make a piggy of myself and scoff them all. Must make some for presents and give them away QUICKLY!

Andrea – Thank you! And congratulations on your new Vitamix! I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it soon. My first Blendtec hummus was almost inedible, my first oat milk was a goopy mess, but I’m getting better at using it! :)

Jennifer – I hope you can get one!! I am going to contact Blendtec to see if they want me to host a giveaway. I have never seen a Blendtec giveaway, only Vitamix ones, but who knows. It couldn’t hurt to ask! :)

Lisa – Thank you! It’s really nice to have a kitchen again, and all the comforts of home! I’m getting too old for this traveling business! :P

Arielmaya – Will do! So far my favorite has been the brown rice milk, with the millet milk being a close second. I will make a batch of each for my next post and I will also show how well they get all whippy with the aerolatte! :)

Katie – *gasp* Procrastinator! You must! It’s so awesome to make your own peanut butter! I will never buy it again from now on. It cost me a buck and seventy cents to make my own peanut butter. YAY! :D

Jeni – You could always freeze them if you don’t want to scoff them all… or you could just scoff them all! :D Don’t tell anyone, but it really was magic. My magic wand just wasn’t in the shot! :D

Kiersten – Aww, thank you! My old blender was such a useless slowpoke! I wish these power blenders were a little less expensive. *sigh*

Ricki – We were both in a hurry to sweeten up the goods! Hee hee! Aww, thank you! If cool means awkward and weird, then yes! :P

Radioactivegan – (I love that name!) Blendtec lovers unite! I am curious to see how it compares with the Vitamix. Not curious enough to buy one though!

Vegyogini – Aww, thank you! Was it the curtsey? I almost edited it out because it was so quirky! :D One recipe for millet milk, coming right up! Oooh quinoa milk! I’ll try that next time I need to make a new batch of milk, which will probably be tomorrow.

Carissa – Boo! It won’t let me watch it either, I have to watch it directly through flickr for some silly reason. A super blender is the best investment for a foodie! :)

I love the video (and music!). And those PB cups look KILLERRR…oh my, that gooey filling! It almost looks like pecan pie filling, ::swoon:: Congrats on the Blendtec, and those 4 new cookbooks! I have all of them, and I can vouch that each one is awesome.

Now I’m feeling very hungry, and very inadequate about my blender! (“will my blender blend?” No, no it wont. Not properly anyway). Oh to have a blender that fulfils it’s one and only reason for being! *sigh*

Everything looks great! I love my Blend-tec, too. I haven’t made nut butter yet, but coincidentally, my husband asked just last night if we could start making our own nut butters. I’ve been looking at bulk places online to purchase some. Do you buy yours in any particular place?

Funny – when I saw your milk picture, I automatically thought, “I don’t know how people drink full cups of milk (even non-dairy) milk!” I just can’t. Then I read your caption.

Amber Shea – Isn’t that song fun? You gotta love Elvis! I’m having recipe overload and I can’t figure out what to make first from my new cookbooks! Help! :D

Kelly – Plain milk is so unappealing. Yuck! I do like the *look* of a white glass of milk and a plate of perfect chocolate cookies, I just don’t want to drink the milk! :P

Michelle – Thank you! I did ask the Blendtec guys if they would like me to host a giveaway for them, but I have never seen any Blendtec giveaways so I might just be dreaming here. Fingers crossed!

Wabbit – Stupid appliances and electronics that won’t fulfil their only purpose in life! Oy! Maybe you should pester the Veggiesaurus! It will be Catmas time soon! :D

Jenny – Yes! Definitely do it! I buy my nuts in bulk from the regular grocery store, but these peanuts were pre-packaged peanuts that were on sale. It’s so hard to find roasted peanuts without any cornstarch or maltodextrin in them though. Good luck making your own nut butters! It’s fun! Oh, and our plain-milk haters club seems to keep growing! :D

Oh man, where to start…honestly, everything I have made from the Urban Vegan cookbook has been stellar. It may be my favorite of the four. The rosemary olive bread was really amazing.From My Sweet Vegan, you’ve gotta try the mocha devastation cake! So sinful…so delicious.

Nonconformist they may be, but your peanut butter cups look better than any I’ve ever seen! I’ve been dying to get a blendtec or vitamix forever… maybe someday! Than I can make my nut butters looks just as smooth as yours.

Thank you, Jodye! I hope you can buy a super blender some day, they are such a good investment! My counter thingie says that I have used my blender exactly 100 times, and I have only had it for a few weeks! :D

I made the peanut butter cups tonight and they came tres yummy! I made them in mini cupcake liners but I needed to double the recipe for some reason. I think the chocolate needs to be thinned out a bit as well.

Trackbacks

[…] have as much ganache as they should have. I felt pretty badass about making them with my own homemade peanut butter, brown sugar, and brown rice milk. You must make these cookies! You must! I’m telling you […]